Migrants disembark in Sicily after EU sharing plan reached

About 400 migrants aboard two border patrol ships disembarked in a Sicilian port Monday after a half-dozen European countries promised to take some of them in rather than leave Italy alone to process their asylum claims.

Police check a migrant disembarked from Frontex ship "Protector" at the port of Pozzallo, Sicily, Italy, in the early hours of Monday, July 16, 2018. Migrants aboard two border patrol ships have disembarked in a Sicilian port after a half-dozen European countries promised to take some of them in rather than have Italy process their asylum claims alone. (Francesco Ruta/ANSA via AP)

Italy's hard-line, anti-migrant government had kept the two military ships from docking at Pozzallo for two days until other countries stepped up in the latest standoff forced by Italy over migrant rescues.

Early Monday, the ships came into port and disembarked their passengers, who were seen being screened at dawn. The women and children had already come ashore.

Doctors at the scene said one of the men was hospitalized in critical condition with pneumonia, while the others were in generally good health but suffering from scabies. They reported that four Somalis had died early on in their voyage when they jumped into the sea.

On Sunday, Germany, Spain, and Portugal each agreed to respectively accept 50 of the migrants, following similar offers by France and Malta. They were responding to a request by the Italian premier, who sent individual letters to each EU member asking for a firm gesture of solidarity so that Italy isn't left alone to cope.

But not everyone agreed. The Czech Republic rebuffed the appeal and called the distribution plan a "road to hell" that would just encourage more human traffickers.

Italy has for years complained that it has been left alone to cope with the estimated 640,000 migrants who have arrived on its shores since 2014, most of them smuggled aboard boats and rubber dinghies from lawless Libya.

A woman is carried away on a stretcher after disembarking from an Italian Coast Guard ship in the port of Pozzallo, Southern Italy, Sunday, July 15, 2018. Another day's worth of food and beverages was sent Sunday to a pair of military ships off Sicily as Italy waited for more European nations to pledge to take a share of the hundreds of migrants on board before allowing the asylum-seekers to step off onto Italian soil. (Francesco Ruta/ANSA via AP)

Children disembark from an Italian Coast Guard ship in the port of Pozzallo, Southern Italy, Sunday, July 15, 2018. Another day's worth of food and beverages was sent Sunday to a pair of military ships off Sicily as Italy waited for more European nations to pledge to take a share of the hundreds of migrants on board before allowing the asylum-seekers to step off onto Italian soil. (Francesco Ruta/ANSA via AP)

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has spearheaded Italy's tough line on migration, said the redistribution deal was just a temporary solution and that the ultimate goal is for Libya to be considered a safe enough haven for migrants to be returned. Italy is also pushing for the EU to fund "hotspots" in migrants' home countries where asylum bids can be processed.

Salvini said the EU has a "bipolar" relationship with Libya, providing training and boats to beef up its coast guard, but then refusing to consider it a safe port where migrants can be brought back.

"What is prohibited today can be normalized tomorrow," he said of Libya's status as a safe haven. "The European Union should convince itself that this is the only way to get out of this problem."

International law requires those rescued at sea to be brought to a safe port; humanitarian groups say Libya hardly constitutes that, given widespread torture and abuse reported by migrants in Libyan detention centers.

Migrants wait to disembark from Frontex ship "Protector" at the port of Pozzallo, Sicily, Italy, in the early hours of Monday, July 16, 2018. Migrants aboard two border patrol ships have disembarked in a Sicilian port after a half-dozen European countries promised to take some of them in rather than have Italy process their asylum claims alone. (Francesco Ruta/ANSA via AP)

Migrants wait to disembark from Frontex ship "Protector" at the port of Pozzallo, Sicily, Italy, in the early hours of Monday, July 16, 2018. Migrants aboard two border patrol ships have disembarked in a Sicilian port after a half-dozen European countries promised to take some of them in rather than have Italy process their asylum claims alone. (Francesco Ruta/ANSA via AP)

Migrants disembark from Frontex ship "Protector" at the port of Pozzallo, Sicily, Italy, in the early hours of Monday, July 16, 2018. Migrants aboard two border patrol ships have disembarked in a Sicilian port after a half-dozen European countries promised to take some of them in rather than have Italy process their asylum claims alone. (Francesco Ruta/ANSA via AP)

Asked about the issue Monday, European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud repeated that no European ship participating in a rescue mission can return migrants to Libya "because we don't consider it a secure country."

The European Commission welcomed the fact that the two rescue ships had disembarked their passengers in Pozzallo and that six EU countries had stepped forward, but said such "ad hoc solutions cannot be sustainable in the long term," a spokesman said.

Aid workers at the docks in Pozzallo said the migrants were traumatized and needed care. They expressed alarm that families had likely been separated when the women and children were allowed off the ships, but not the men.

"The reality is that many among these women are very young girls and the children are very young and need their relatives," U.N. refugee agency spokesman Marco Rotunno said.

"It is unacceptable that these people are blocked onboard and that is not allowed to disembark and that their final destination is being negotiated while they are blocked," he added. "Disembarking in a safe port should be granted immediately and a fair relocation should be decided at a later stage."

A paramedic holds a child disembarked from an Italian Coast Guard ship in the port of Pozzallo, Southern Italy, Sunday, July 15, 2018. Another day's worth of food and beverages was sent Sunday to a pair of military ships off Sicily as Italy waited for more European nations to pledge to take a share of the hundreds of migrants on board before allowing the asylum-seekers to step off onto Italian soil. (Francesco Ruta/ANSA via AP)

The migrants had set off from Libya in a large fishing boat on Wednesday. Italy and Malta both refused to let the ship dock, and eventually, the migrants were transferred onto two vessels: one participating in the EU border patrol agency's Mediterranean search and rescue mission and one from the Italian border agency.

The International Organization for Migration's Italy spokesman, Flavio Di Giacomo, said Monday that the migrants arriving in Pozzallo reported that four Somalis drowned Friday when they and 30 other migrants jumped into the sea to reach an unidentified rescue ship.

It's not clear what became of the 30 others.

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — The bodies of nine migrants found on an African boat off the northern coast of Brazil’s Amazon region were buried Thursday with a solemn ceremony in the Para state capital of Belem.

Fishermen off the coast of Para found the boat adrift April 13, carrying the bodies that were already decomposing. Brazilian officials later said documents found in the vessel indicated that the victims were migrants from Mali and Mauritania and that the boat had departed the latter country after Jan. 17.

Brazil's federal police said later that the bodies were of adults or teenagers whose exact age could not be determined. Agents found two documents — an identity card from Mauritania and a register of entry in Mauritania that belonged to someone from Mali.

The deceased were buried in a secular ceremony organized by a number of groups involved in their recovery, such as the U.N. Refugee Agency, the Red Cross and the International Organization for Migration, as well as Brazilian police, navy and civil defense agencies.

A tropical rain fell as their coffins were lowered into graves dug into the earth and those present watched in respectful silence.

Their roughly 12-meter (39-foot) boat was carrying 25 raincoats and 27 mobile phones, suggesting the original number of passengers was significantly higher. This also implies that people of other nationalities may have been among the deceased, local officials have said.

Brazil's federal police said it is unlikely they will extract any information from the phones due to the long time of oxydation they were subjected to. The force also added they had found paper notes in the boat with phone numbers from Mauritania, Mali and Congo. A kind of stove and two containers that could have carried water or fuel were also among the remains.

It was a rustic blue-and-white fiberglass boat that, when found, had neither motor, tiller nor rudder. Its canoe shape is similar to Mauritanian fishing boats often used by migrants fleeing West Africa and aiming to enter the European Union via Spain’s Canary Islands.

An Associated Press investigation published last year revealed that in 2021 at least seven boats from northwest Africa were found in the Caribbean and Brazil. All carried dead bodies, like the vessel found in Para.

So far, none of the victims have been identified. Authorities said the manner of their burial would allow for subsequent exhumations in case families of the deceased were located and wished to transfer the bodies back to their home countries.

Brazil’s criminology institute in the capital Brasilia is carrying out forensic examinations of the remains, and the Federal Police say they are in contact with Interpol and foreign organizations to provide eventual results.

This year the number of people attempting the crossing from the northwest coast of Africa to the EU has seen a 500% spike, with the majority departing from Mauritania, according to Spain’s interior ministry. But it is a dangerous route with strong Atlantic winds, and boats that go off course can stay adrift for months and be swept away to distant destinations, often leading migrants to die of dehydration and malnutrition.

The reasons pushing people toward such boats are varied and intertwined: a lack of jobs and prospects of a better life, impacts of climate change, growing insecurity and political instability, among others.

More than 14,000 African migrants have reached the Canary Islands so far this year, according to the Spanish ministry. In February, the EU and Mauritania signed a 210 million euro ($225 million) deal aimed at cracking down on people smuggling and deterring migrant boats.

With hundreds more West African migrants reported missing, families in Mauritania have set up a commission to search for loved ones, and are anxiously awaiting information from Brazil.

Bachirou Saw of Mauritania buried one of his nephews earlier this year who had died during the arduous Atlantic crossing shortly after reaching the Spanish island of El Hierro. He’s still looking for another nephew, Kadija Saw, who departed in January and is nowhere to be found. He’s following news from Brazil closely.

Saw, who also has Spanish citizenship and immigrated to Europe by plane 30 years ago when it was easier to get a visa, said he’s been trying to convince young men not to emigrate by boat. He created a WhatsApp group to alert migrants to the perils of the ocean voyage and to share information with desperate relatives, and has counted at least 1,500 missing in the last six months from Mauritania, Mali and Senegal. While most of the migrants embarking to Europe are men, there is an increasing number of women getting aboard boats, too.

“I have their ID’s on my phone,” said Saw, who receives messages every day from families looking for their loved ones. Together with others, they’ve organized trips to Morocco to look inside prisons and morgues. Moroccan authorities often intercept migrants trying to reach Spain and detain them before deporting them. But Saw’s nephew wasn’t there either. He also visited the Canary Islands to check the morgues there.

Saw’s sister is desolate. “Every day she buys credit to listen to our audios, she lives for this, she doesn’t eat, she is thin, just thinking about her son,” Saw said. And she’s not alone.

“It’s very sad, half of the villages are dancing because their sons have arrived (in Spain),” he said, “but the other half cries because they’ve lost their sons in the ocean.”

Carneiro reported from Rio de Janeiro. Associated Press writer Renata Brito contributed from New York.

Cemetery workers lower into a grave, a coffin that contains the remains of an unidentified migrant, at the Sao Jorge cemetery, in Belem, Para state, Brazil, Thursday, April 25, 2024. The bodies of nine migrants found on an African boat off the northern coast of Brazil's Amazon region were buried Thursday with a solemn ceremony. (AP Photo/Paulo Santos)

Cemetery workers lower into a grave, a coffin that contains the remains of an unidentified migrant, at the Sao Jorge cemetery, in Belem, Para state, Brazil, Thursday, April 25, 2024. The bodies of nine migrants found on an African boat off the northern coast of Brazil's Amazon region were buried Thursday with a solemn ceremony. (AP Photo/Paulo Santos)

Cemetery workers lower into a grave, a coffin that contains the remains of an unidentified migrant, at the Sao Jorge cemetery, in Belem, Para state, Brazil, Thursday, April 25, 2024. The bodies of nine migrants found on an African boat off the northern coast of Brazil's Amazon region were buried Thursday with a solemn ceremony. (AP Photo/Paulo Santos)

A label with the number 5 to mark one of nine unidentified migrants, sits on a freshly dug grave during a burial service, at Sao Jorge cemetery, in Belem, Para state, Brazil, Thursday, April 25, 2024. The bodies of nine migrants found on an African boat off the northern coast of Brazil's Amazon region were buried Thursday with a solemn ceremony in a cemetery. (AP Photo/Paulo Santos)

Federal police superintendent Jose Roberto Peres speaks during a burial service for nine unidentified migrants, at the Sao Jorge cemetery, in Belem, Para state, Brazil, Thursday, April 25, 2024. The bodies of nine migrants found on an African boat off the northern coast of Brazil's Amazon region were buried Thursday with a solemn ceremony. (AP Photo/Paulo Santos)

Police and firefighters attend the burial of nine unidentified migrants at the Sao Jorge cemetery, in Belem, Para state, Brazil, Thursday, April 25, 2024. The bodies of nine migrants found on an African boat off the northern coast of Brazil's Amazon region were buried Thursday with a solemn ceremony. (AP Photo/Paulo Santos)

Authorities stand next to the nine coffins that contain the remains of unidentified migrants, at the Sao Jorge cemetery, in Belem, Para state, Brazil, Thursday, April 25, 2024. The bodies of nine migrants found on an African boat off the northern coast of Brazil's Amazon region were buried Thursday with a solemn ceremony. (AP Photo/Paulo Santos)

Cemetery workers carry the coffin that contains the remains of an unidentified migrant, at the Sao Jorge cemetery, in Belem, Para state, Brazil, Thursday, April 25, 2024. The bodies of nine migrants found on an African boat off the northern coast of Brazil's Amazon region were buried Thursday with a solemn ceremony. (AP Photo/Paulo Santos)